Marcia Lucas is best known for her work editing the Star Wars trilogy as well as other films by her then-husband George Lucas: THX-1138 and American Graffiti.
23 Facts About Marcia Lucas
1.
2.
Marcia Lucas edited Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, and New York, New York.
3.
Marcia Lucas was previously nominated for an Academy Award for her film editing on American Graffiti and for a BAFTA Award for Best Editing for her work on Taxi Driver.
4.
Marcia Lucas's father was an Air Force officer stationed in Stockton, California, during World War II.
5.
When Marcia Lucas's grandfather died, her mother moved to an apartment nearby, and she found work as a clerk at an insurance agency.
6.
Marcia Lucas lived with her stepfamily for two years and moved back to Hollywood.
7.
Marcia Lucas returned to North Hollywood to finish high school, and enrolled in chemistry courses at Los Angeles City College while working in a mortgage banking firm.
8.
In 1964, Marcia Lucas's then-boyfriend worked for a Hollywood museum and wanted to hire her as a librarian to catalog all the donated movie memorabilia.
9.
Marcia Lucas was eventually promoted up to being an assistant editor by the time she was twenty.
10.
Marcia Lucas was in a Motion Picture Editors Guild apprenticeship of eight years, leading to becoming a Guild film editor.
11.
When principal photography begun on The Rain People, Marcia Lucas simultaneously begun shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary short titled Filmmaker.
12.
Back in California, Marcia Lucas had accepted an offer to work on Medium Cool when George had recommended her as an assistant editor for Barry Malkin on The Rain People.
13.
When principal photography had wrapped on American Graffiti, George had wanted Marcia Lucas to edit the film, but Universal Pictures executive Ned Tanen insisted on hiring Verna Fields, who had just finished editing Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express.
14.
However, Marcia Lucas suggested to her husband that he should kill off Kenobi and have him act as a spiritual guide to Luke.
15.
Marcia Lucas was tasked to edit the Battle of Yavin sequence, in which she drastically diverted from the originally scripted shot sequence.
16.
Shortly after Christmas 1976, Marcia Lucas left Star Wars to work on Scorsese's musical drama New York, New York because Irving Lerner had died before he finished editing the film.
17.
At the 50th Academy Awards, Marcia Lucas won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Film Editing with Chew and Hirsch.
18.
In 1982, Marcia Lucas came on board Return of the Jedi as the film's third editor alongside Duwayne Dunham and Sean Barton.
19.
In 1967, Marcia met George Lucas while he was attending film school at the University of Southern California, when they both served as apprentice editors on Journey to the Pacific under Verna Fields.
20.
On June 13,1983, George formally announced at Skywalker Ranch that he and Marcia Lucas were divorcing; the couple would share custody of their daughter while Marcia Lucas would relocate to Los Angeles.
21.
Marcia Lucas later married Tom Rodrigues, a stained glass artist who worked as a production manager at Skywalker Ranch from 1980 to 1983, whom she met before divorcing George.
22.
Rinzler's posthumous final book, Howard Kazanjian: A Producer's Life, Marcia Lucas criticized the later Star Wars films.
23.
Marcia Lucas revealed that upon seeing The Phantom Menace, she "cried because [she] didn't think it was very good," particularly criticizing the age gap between romantic leads Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.